Articles

Hope for Our Future: Making Communities a “Pa ka pa la”, Kuja: In Haitian Creole, “pa ka pa la” means the one that cannot ‘not be there’. Translated into French, it means “incontournable”. In English, an “indispensable person or entity”. USAID and similar agencies used to be seen as a “Pa ka pa la” before their brutal demise that was akin to an unexpected anesthesia-free physical amputation. The aid sector lost important limbs, millions bled and died from the resulting wounds, and the collective trauma and deadly blows are still being felt by former staff members/ holders of power, and former ‘community recipients and beneficiaries'.

The Problems and the Beauty of Community-Led Development, Kuja: The International Aid sector has been facing an existential crisis since the Trump administration abruptly pulled the rug of the U.S.’ substantial aid assistance from under it. The fact that other nations have also been cutting their contributions’ level has not helped matters.

Is The Aid Sector Tèt Anba?, CDA Collaborative: In Haitian Creole, tèt anba means upside down or absurd. We say “bagay saa yo tèt anba” – things are upside down – when we want to describe a chaotic situation or just the state of the world gone wrong. Is the aid sector tèt anba? Is it absurd? Spoiler alert, it is, and even more so that its absurdity is normalized into an ‘acceptable reality.’ One could argue that this dynamic exists through our entire societal framework, except that aid is supposed to help the world find justice and right the wrongs, isn’t it?

“What if?” Questions with answers for a paradigm shift in the Aid System, CDA Collaborative: What if… the shroud of invisibility that has been forced upon the reality of socio-economic and geopolitical dynamics of the foreign Aid sector was peeled back to reveal the blinding truth?

You call it philanthropy, we call it ‘Developman Tèt Ansanm’, Alliance Magazine: ‘We do not learn from experience…We learn from reflecting on experience.’ – John Dewey said. In the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti Earthquake, armed with a lot of hope and an all-consuming desire for structural change, I initiated the launching of the Haiti Community Foundation Initiative with the engagement and support of a wide range of local and international stakeholders. Over the past four years, I have been reflecting on this incredible journey and its lessons through various writings and presentations that this article draws from.

Black Lives Matter is also a reckoning for foreign aid and international NGOs, Open Democracy: The recent wave of citizen-led uprisings in support of the global Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement has meant that as Black women with over 50 years of combined experience in the humanitarian and development sectors, we can finally breathe. Our experiences of racism - both individualized and systemic - have been brought into the spotlight. But how can we ensure that the response to this watershed moment ignites a reckoning for our sector, rather than becoming yet another technocratic exercise with more ineffective, top-down monitoring?

The Haiti Community Foundation: the impossible made possible, Global Fund Community Foundations: The story of the Haiti Community Foundation is a story of the impossible made possible thanks to the power of deep abiding love for Haiti, the power of shared vision and the power of community leadership and global solidarity. It all began after a life altering disaster…

Safeguarding: Reflexions Of A Global South Leader Amid #AidToo, Global Giving: Since the Oxfam scandal, the aid sector has been focusing on safeguarding with a #MeToo and #AidToo focus. Recently, I’ve been asked to write about the source and implications of the scandal from a Global South perspective (I was born and raised in Haiti, and I’ve been working there for the past eight years.) However, for most of my professional life, I’ve been working in the Global North as an executive leader and nonprofit practitioner and management consultant.

What now? Beyond the #OxfamScandal, How Matters: The Oxfam scandal has generated much press coverage over the past two weeks, with a good amount of sensationalism. The focus has been positively titillating and hashtag-able: prostitutes, #metoo, sexual harassment, rapes, #aidtoo.